Mounting Frustrations
by NoteEmmy
Summary: Kaiba has been working diligently on a new project but the results aren't what he's been looking for.


It had been days without sleep, which was usual. They were starting to blend together. Hours passed by that felt like minutes. Sometimes seconds trickled by and felt like hours at a time. Whether it had been four or five days at this point no longer mattered to him. What mattered was getting a result, and the current process he was dealing with wasn't delivering any. It was too far into production to scrap, though. So the whole thing had him grousing and more frustrated than he'd ever been.

Kaiba Seto demanded results from his employees. He demanded results from his scientists. He demanded results from his marketers, his developers, his public relations people. He demanded the best. So what was he left to do when he could get nothing from his own efforts? It was starting to boil his blood so much that talking to anyone had been chopped out of his current schedule. Meetings were put far away to the end of next week. Appointments were stopped. His office had been locked and no one was getting in.

And he certainly wasn't going out. He had no time for that. He had to fix whatever was going wrong. The problem was that it just made no sense.

He'd spent months on the design; sleek, small, beautiful. He'd spent even longer on just one code. Just one. The only one he was going to bother with himself. If he could get this to work, the rest could be handed off to his team and they could deal with Pegasus. They could deal with the creation. They could deal with all of it…

But he wanted the Blue Eyes for himself.

And in these days where nothing was getting done, he was starting to question just how much of his soul he could possibly pour into this project. The Blue Eyes was, in fact, that very thing. Yet she was nowhere to be found. He'd made her so perfect, not that she'd needed help with that. Flawless. Effortless. Threatening. Striking. Everything his dragon should be. On his computer it seemed so easy. He barely had to look at the references. He knew his dragon by heart.

In the transfer she was getting lost. If he could not make his Blue Eyes appear in the smaller hologram projector, the entire project needed to be scrapped. Why would she not show herself? She was complete down to the last line of code and the final layer of color on his computer. Each scale had been painstakingly defined by hand. Why? Why would she not reveal herself in the palm of his hand?

Kaiba was becoming disheartened. His glasses were left somewhere to the corner of the desk. Taking them off in frustration one last time would break them he knew. So he sat. He sat and watched the blue pile of mush on his desk, small and unimportant, just lie there and do nothing. It always started this way. The monsters were, in theory, supposed to be able to come when called. Yet when he called for her there was this mess. This blue and white mess that just sat there for minutes at a time.

Then slowly it would move. It would move and grow. If this was the penance he had to pay, a small warm up time, he would pay it. Not perfect, but maybe the people in the lab could do something about it. But it got worse from there. Instead of his magnificent dragon a smaller, weaker and disgusting human frame appeared.

A girl.

In the deepest recesses of his mind he could hear a name but it had all been shut out some time ago. Locked away like he locked his cards in a vault. The moment Atem had left was the moment that was finally gone from his life. He'd lived on a lie that it had relieved him.

It hadn't.

But now the dusky memories were gone from him, forcibly. He had no need. For them or for him. So when that girl in her weak form finally showed all he could do was narrow his eyes at her. Her blue ones turned up to him, as they always did, questioning, small, meek. His lips drew into a sharp frown.

Where was his beautiful dragon? Why in its place was this useless girl? None of it made sense. And it was a problem he'd been dealing with for a long time now. Much longer than should have been necessary. The obvious answer was to scrap the project and start fresh. But he'd put so much time, so much effort, so much blood into this. Throwing it away… it just didn't feel right.

The girl stood, naked as she was, not that Kaiba cared. His dragon was full in form and had no need for clothes. Despite where he couldn't understand why there was a girl when he'd coded a dragon, at least that much made sense to him. And just like every other time she walked to the edge of his desk. Without his permission, just like the time before last, his fingers went to it. He pretended as if he was skimming along the finely polished wood. It gave him a lost sense of control.

He almost wanted to squash her. For a moment he reached up, knowing that it would do nothing. Flicking her or pushing her down was pointless. They were just holograms. Small as they were now, he'd just go right through the refractions of light.

Finally her last play came when she scampered up his fingers, the projector following her as it must, all the way up his arm and to his shoulders. Then she sat, usually the left but tonight she had picked the right side. Her legs swung carelessly and Kaiba watched out of the corner of his eye, feeling the anger welling up. Why was this happening to him?

So many perfect lines of code, so many wasted nights on blueprints, and this was what he had to show for it? A weak naked girl who liked to preen on his shoulder? His teeth clenched so hard they began to hurt.

"Get off." He voiced darkly as he stood. She tumbled back to the desk, rather animated for something he'd never coded. Once shaking herself off she began chirping at him. It only angered him more. Those were supposed to be proud roars, not squeaky chatters.

He swiftly turned to the windows, trying to gather himself. His anger was swelling. If he didn't go- if he didn't do something else-

"BE SILENT!"

The back of his hand swiped across the desk, sending the small piece of new technology hurtling towards the wall, breaking into a few pieces. Gone with it was the girl.

Now alone once again in his office. His work destroyed. It was all he could do to not sink into his chair and finally give way to unforgiving unconsciousness. He'd have to push something else for the holiday. This would never be ready on time. He had no real reason for why it wouldn't work now. And he didn't want to work on it any longer.

Finally he grabbed his coat and left the office, mood as low as it could have been, worse than it had been for some time. Why a girl and not a dragon? What had he done wrong? Why would she not come when called? The last time that had been so was-

…Where was his precious Blue Eyes White Dragon?


End file.
